#carlylearnstocode

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Early in the morning, risin’ to the street
Light me up that cigarette and I strap shoes on my feet
Got to find a reason, a reason things went wrong
Got to find a reason why my [ code is ] all gone

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Code Academy labs surpassed expectations this week. We are now writing all code on the Sublime text editor. Prior to starting this course I was concerned that we would just be learning on the Code Academy browser platform. While the browser platform is great for beginners (me), I feel more confident that I will actually come out of this course with applicable skills. Two weeks in, and I am pretty confident I could start building my own webpages with HTML + CSS. I just have to figure out how to deploy…

The second week was more challenging. The first twenty minutes of class is a lecture; the rest of 4.5 hours is spent pair programming. We had different partners this week. I had the opportunity of being the slightly more knowledgable partner. Coincidently, my partner and I both came from backgrounds in film production.

As a slightly more knowledgeable beginner, I found it important to be cognizant of the following:

1. Slowing down and sharing knowledge

2. Staying confident in what I did know

3. Googling

We had a bit of trouble setting up Sublime at first. My computer did not want to play with it. In fact, it refused to work until we humbled ourselves to it’s power. After 45 minutes of fiddling by myself and the TA, it worked after a hard restart.

It was my first experience with code magic/mystery.

However, we did finally get it up and running. And ended up catching up to the rest of the class.

We also learned a fun little Sublime trick called ‘Emmet’. He is awesome. He’s a text-editing ninja. And I shall be his student. Homework is to try to memorize the short-cuts this week.

Saturday, Jan 17th was my first class as a student of Cohort Awesome – Code Academy Labs NYC January 2015 Cohort. The Labs curriculum covers HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, Angular.JS and Ruby on Rails in a 12 week part-time course. The class meets every Saturday from 12-5PM at DevBootcamp in NYC, with roughly 25 hours of take-home work, and an office-hour style Google Hangout on Tuesdays.

The January 2015 Cohort stars 15 dynamic, intelligent, accomplished individuals from various backgrounds. A handful are working in the tech industry. Others boast backgrounds as diverse as theater and banking.

We tackled the first HTML + CSS projects by pair programming the first day. Pair programming is when one person “drives” (types), while the other person “navigates”(dictates code). As we are all relative beginners, working in pairs is great opportunity to learn from others while gaining confidence in what you already know.

We programmed for almost 5 straight hours. The time flew by and the experience was invigorating.

I am so grateful to work with Code Academy, and excited to take this next step in my education. I’ll try to make posts each week. I’m hoping this blog will be a resource and a source of encouragement for other women who are interested in learning to code. Feel free to leave comments and ask me questions.

“Willpower is the human desire to undertake full responsibility of oneself, behavior and action, to realize what one deserves to be. To regard what happened as it should have happened, to move forward and transform the results into positive ones through the power of choice and prioritization.”
— Nora AlShuhail